A young girl said her mother tried to kill her when she was in her mother’s womb. Prosecutors said the girl survived only to live a life chained to a wall, told by her legal guardians that she was ugly, and starved in a Salinas house.

That was some of the evidence presented Friday in the preliminary hearing for Christian Deandra and Eraca Dawn Craig, domestic partners accused of abusing, neglecting and torturing three young kids in their care.

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When deputies went to the couple’s Russell Road house back in March for a welfare check on the girl, Deandra and Craig were packing up to move to Fresno.

The two women were charged with child abuse, neglect, and torture.

According to testimony, an 8-year-old girl got the brunt of the alleged punishment.

At Friday’s hearing, there was conflicting evidence as to whether that actually happened. A sheriff’s deputy who was one of the first to question the girl at a hospital testified that the girl told her that Deandra and Craig would chain her by her ankles to a wall at night to keep her from getting food.

The girl was always hungry but didn’t know why, and at one point she bit her wrist thinking it might help the hunger go away, the deputy said.

Deputy Dallen Cornel testified that the girl said her biological mother "tried to kill her when she was in her mother’s womb."

Deandra and Craig told investigators that the girl suffered from PTSD, would throw tantrums and go on hunger strikes.

In cross-examination by Deandra’s defense attorney, the deputy said the young girl also told her that she was never chained to a wall. The girl told the deputy the couple would discipline her by having her stand in a corner. In further questioning the deputy said the girl later told her that Deandra and Craig never abused her and never denied her food.

When child care workers and investigators asked the girl where she wanted to go, she said she wanted to go back home "with her parents," meaning Deandra and Craig.